Mr. David Plouffe
Degree: 2010, Bachelor of Arts
Job Title: Board Member and Adviser, Uber Technologies, Inc.
Delaware native David Plouffe (AS ’10) left University of Delaware before graduating to begin a career in politics. He was President Barack Obama?s campaign manager in 2008, helping steer victories over Hillary Clinton for the nomination and John McCain for the White House, and later became senior adviser to the president. Plouffe is now a University of Delaware graduate, having received his bachelor’s degree in 2010. He serves as a Senior Fellow for the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication. He is chief advisor and board member of Uber and also serves on the board of the Barack Obama Foundation.
Plouffe and his fellow UD alumni Vice President Joe Biden (AS ’65) and Steve Schmidt (AS ’13), who led the John McCain’s 2008 campaign, inspired Bloomberg News to call University of Delaware the academic epicenter of national politics in 2008.
Plouffe has managed campaigns at all levels of politics, served as an award-winning producer of television advertisements, served as a consultant to leading Fortune 500 companies and has been a ubiquitous presence on national news shows.
In 2010, Plouffe was number four on Newsweek‘s list of ‘New Thought Leaders,’ and The Daily Beast named him as one of the ’25 Smartest People of the Decade.’ GQ named Plouffe in 2012 the third most powerful person in Washington.
Plouffe is the author of The New York Times best seller, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory and has been a contributor for ABC News and Bloomberg Television. In 2013, he was inducted into The American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame.